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New IRONMAN World Championship Slot Allocation and Rolldown Process

Global initiative puts slot allocation and rolldown at the same time.

Every year thousands of athletes compete at IRONMAN events around the world in hopes of qualifying for the IRONMAN World Championship held in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii every October. Age group athletes must finish at the front of their age categories to earn a chance to compete at the world’s most prestigious one-day sporting event.

In order to standardize the slot allocation and rolldown for the IRONMAN World Championship, IRONMAN events around the world will now combine slot allocation and rolldown into one ceremony.

In the past many events have offered a separate time for automatic qualifiers to claim their slot, followed by a rolldown ceremony where the remaining slots were handed out. This process will now be combined where slot allocation and rolldown will be completed at the same time.

Slot Allocation

The final number of slots allocated in each age category at an event will be determined by the number of starters in each age group, not by the number of athletes registered. There will always be one slot allocated per age group (as long as there is at least one competitor who has started in that age group). The higher the number of starters in an age group, the higher the percentage of slots allocated to that age group.